Mikhail Botvinnik
Number of games in database: 1,183
Years covered: 1924 to 1983
Overall record: +568 -138 =464 (68.4%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
13 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik was born in Kuokkala, near Viipuri (Today, Vyborg) in what was then Finland. He was raised in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). He learned the game early and progressed rapidly, winning the 1st of his 6 USSR Championships in 1931; the other 5 victories were in 1933, 1939, 1944, 1945 and 1952. He also won the Leningrad tournament of 1934, the Absolute Soviet Championship in 1941, and the Sverdlovsk super tournament of 1943. Other significant achievements include equal first with Salomon Flohr in Moscow 1935, 2nd at Moscow 1936 behind Jose Raul Capablanca, equal first with Capablanca at Nottingham 1936, 3rd at AVRO 1938, and first at Groningen 1946 before playing for the World Championship in 1948. He also won the Tchigorin Memorial tournament of 1947 and came equal first with David Bronstein in the Alekhine Memorial of 1956.(1)

With the death of Alexander Alekhine in 1946, the FIDE saw its chance to take control of the World Championship and invited six players to take part in a tournament to determine the championship. With Reuben Fine declining the invitation to play, Botvinnik won it ahead of Vassily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Samuel Reshevsky, and Dr Max Euwe in the quintuple round robin FIDE World Championship Tournament (1948). He retained the crown in 1951 against David Bronstein when he tied the match, by winning and drawing his last two games. He again retained it in 1954 against Vasily Smyslov by again drawing the match, however Smyslov turned the tables in 1957 by wresting the crown from Botvinnik. At the time, a defeated champion was entitled to a return match the following year and so in 1958, Botvinnik defeated Smyslov in a return match. Likewise, after losing to Mikhail Tal in 1960, Botvinnik defeated him in a return match in 1961. He lost the title for the last time to Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian in 1963. FIDE had eliminated the return match and so Botvinnik chose to retire from world championship play.

Generally regarded as the Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School, his style was based on rigorous opening preparation, deep calculation, and accurate endgame technique. Students of his school include Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and many more.

Live footages of Botvinnik from 1933-1963 starting at the following link: Mikhail Botvinnik.

HeMateMe: Hey, how many people can claim to be thrown off of a tennis court by Jimbo?

I think he played one year of college tennis, like McEnroe, then turned pro. In the DeFord article, Ilie Nastase says that Connors would hole up in his hotel, and just get room service and play backgammon with Nastase. Connor's has always reminded me a litle of Fischer; very talanted, but could never get on well with large numbers of people, not too many interviews, a bit reclusive.

ycbaywtb: this is good post, but those who follow chess will always know who's who and why

<<<Jim Bartle: I was reading a Sports Illustrated story on K-K 1987 which referred to Botvinnik as "the three-time world champion."
This happens in boxing as well (Muhammad Ali being the most notable case), saying so-and-so is a "two-time champion" or whatever, and it really irritates me.

Why is Botvinnik a three-time champion rather than a run-of-the-mill one-time champion? Only because he also lost the championship twice.

Or maybe the problem goes the other way. Instead of just "former champion," maybe Kasparov should be referred to as "six-time champion.">

chancho: <Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion.>

<Born in St. Petersburg, the son of a dental technician, he first came to the notice of the chess world at the age of 14, when he defeated the world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca, in a simultaneous display.>

<Progress was fairly rapid and by the age of 20, Botvinnik, already a Soviet Master of some years standing, won his first Soviet Championship in 1931. This feat was to be repeated in 1933, 1939, 1941, 1945 and 1952.>

<At 24 years of age, Botvinnik was competing on equal terms with the world's elite, chalking up international tournament successes in some of the strongest tournaments of the day. First (equal with Salo Flohr) at Moscow 1935, ahead of Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca. First (equal with Capablanca) at Nottingham in 1936 and equal third at the prestigious AVRO tournament of 1938.>

<Not surprisingly, Botvinnik continued to build on these successes and went on to hold the title of World Champion on three separate occasions (1948-57, 1958-60, 1961-63). His longevity at the top level of chess is attributed to his astonishing dedication to study. Pre-match preparation and post-match analysis had not featured quite so prominently in the armoury of many of his predecessors, but this was Botvinnik's real strength. Technique over tactics, endgame mastery over opening traps. His adoption and development of solid opening lines in the Nimzo-Indian, Slav and Winawer French stood up to the severest scrutiny and he was able to focus on a narrow repertoire of openings during his most important matches, frequently guiding the game into well chosen areas of preparation. There were many "secret" training matches against masters of the calibre of Flohr, Yuri Averbakh and Viacheslav Ragozin. It was the unveiling, many years later, of the details of these matches that provided the chess historian with a fascinating new insight into Botvinnik's reign.>

<It is perhaps surprising that Mikhail Botvinnik is not widely regarded as a contender for the title of best player of all time. On the one hand, his achievements were undoubtedly impressive and it should be remembered that his main rivals, the younger Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, David Bronstein, Paul Keres and Mikhail Tal were all formidable players in their own right.>

<On the other hand, critics point to his rare appearances in post-World War II tournaments and his mediocre record in world championships matches - he lost 2 but regained the title in re-matches; and he struggled to draw the other 2 matches. Many people also think that Botvinnik's play was based on correctness rather than the intuitive or the spectacular - although world-class player Reuben Fine wrote that Botvinnik's collection of best games was one of "the three most beautiful".>

<Three factors contributed to his patchy record. World War II broke out just when Botvinnik entered his prime - he might have been world champion 5 years earlier if the war had not interrupted international chess competition. He was the only world-class player who at the same time had a long and distinguished career in another field - the Soviet government decorated him for his achievements in engineering, and Fine recounts a story which shows that Botvinnik was as committed to engineering as he was to chess. Finally, previous world champions had been free to avoid their strongest competitors, the way heavyweight boxers do to-day; Botvinnik was the first champion who was forced to play his strongest opponent every three years, and held the title longer than any of his successors except Kasparov.>

<From the 1960s onwards, Mikhail Botvinnik curtailed his competitive play, preferring instead to occupy himself with the development of computer chess programs and to assist with the training of younger players; Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov were just two of his many students.>

Petrosianic: <Jim Bartle><This happens in boxing as well (Muhammad Ali being the most notable case), saying so-and-so is a "two-time champion" or whatever, and it really irritates me.

Why is Botvinnik a three-time champion rather than a run-of-the-mill one-time champion? Only because he also lost the championship twice.>

They seem to be moving away from that these days. The current trend seems to be moving towards counting every victory in a title event, rather than counting the number of times that someone acquired the title. I've often seen Susan Polgar call Karpov a "7 time World Champion", which is a really tenuous claim, because she must be counting it like this:

So, in fact he only played in and won two events for the undisputed world title, but the 2 has been massaged up to a 7.

If we counted Botvinnik this way, he'd be a 5 time champion (the two drawn matches would increase the 3 to a 5).

Personally, I prefer the old way. You say it rewards someone for losing the title, and there's some truth to that. But seeing what happens to most champions after winning the title (they reach the top of the mountain, start to get lazy, and their play falls off), I find it extremly impressive that someone could lose the title, and rather than just live off their reputation, actually have the fire to go out and get it back again.

Petrosianic: Yeah, winning the title is impressive, but defending it is even more impressive. And suffering the shock of losing it, but going out and getting it back is even more impressive still. To me, at least.

Petrosianic: This is where Botvinnik deserves the most credit. There were people who seriously suggested that he'd been beaten so badly in 1960 that he wouldn't even use his rematch. Why suffer another indignity like that? 1957 was almost as bad. To get the title back, you have to convince yourself that you can get right back out there and beat the same guy who just handed you a thrashing. To convince yourself, you have to ignore everybody who's saying "Who does he think he is, thinking he can beat Tal?" A second defeat would have been much more embarrassing. Like Muhammad Ali trying to come back against Larry Holmes, when everyone said he should just hang it up (and in that case, they were right). It must be a lot harder than just winning the title in the first place. A regular challenger has nothing to lose and everything to win.

I play the Fred: <I think Bronstein hated Botvinnik more than vice versa. Unlike most here I have no use for Bronstein as a person, so that doesn't make me think any less of Botvinnik.>

The dislike (or hatred) was mutual at the least, but probably more intense from Botvinnik's side. In "Soviet Chess", Soltis wrote that in later years, Botvinnik didn't even want the name David Bronstein mentioned in his presence. To corroborate this, on another page here someone posted an analysis by Botvinnik, of a Bronstein game, in which Botvinnik referred to Bronstein only as "Br".

I don't think Bronstein forbid his acquaintences to mention the name Botvinnik in his presence, and I don't think Bronstein ever annotated a Botvinnik game by calling Botvinnik "Bo".

Open Defence: <Xeroxx: Why is Botvinnik everybody's favourite player?> his chess is deep and profound

He built on the work of Nimzovitch, Alekhine, Rubenstein, Capablanca and even as far back as Lasker bringing in a comprehensive style of play where long term strategies for the type of end game the position results in were determined sometimes even in the opening!

A.G. Argent: The last page of Botvinnik's games (7) were played just this September by another Mikhail Botvinnik, no relation, ironically born the same year of the last game CG has for the Great Botvinnik, 1983. The guy's from Belarus now an Israeli. At
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~r... there's a game he played against a guy named Tigran Petrosian, also no relation to his namesake. True story. Didn't fare too well in the tournament that the 7 games are from. Came in 39th. Bad showing for a fella named after a legend. Anyway, CG oughta seperate the two, eh?

Eyal: <Didn't fare too well in the tournament that the 7 games are from.>

And I thought he didn’t do so badly for someone who’s been dead for 15 years… Seriously though, if you want this thing (like any other kind of database problem) to be rectified, you should notify CG about it in their forum: User: chessgames.com; they're probably not going to read this specific kibitzing page out of thousands on their own initiative.

A.G. Argent: <Eyal><...they're probably not going to read..> Yeah, I know. It was more of a rhetorical suggestion than an official request. I just found it interesting about the young neo-Botvinnik. What can a kid do when his parents give him that handle but play chess? Same with Tigran L Petrosian.

Eyal: <What can a kid do when his parents give him that handle but play chess?>

Yes, I suppose names like that can have a great influence on a person’s life. Reminds me of a story about a meeting of the Viennese Psychoanalytic society, where a certain member gave a lecture in which he developed an extensive theory about how people's names can have a profound psychological impact on their lives, and backed it up by the discussion of several life-histories of his patients. At the end, the lecturer was severely reprimanded by Freud for the indiscretion of revealing his patients' names, and tried to assuage him by promising that all the names used were aliases.

seeminor: Didn't he use World Championship matches as a quasi-training match? He would let the challenger play all his ideas out on the board, take them away and prepare fastidiously for the (guaranteed) return match. Once the return match was no longer a condition he was not interested ingoing through the cycle once more.

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